Dist. 14, Art. 1, Q. 2
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/1/d/14/q/bon-sent-I-d14-a1-q2
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### Question II. *Whether the eternal and the temporal procession of the Holy Spirit are numbered as two processions.*

Secondly it is asked, whether the temporal procession is to be numbered together with the eternal. And that it is so, seems [the case]:

1. Through the fact that the Master says: "that the procession of the Holy Spirit is twofold, eternal and temporal."

2. Likewise, by reason it seems similar, since the temporal differs more from the eternal than the eternal from the eternal; that [latter] is established; but the eternal procession makes a number with the eternal, since the procession of the Son and the procession of the Holy Spirit are two: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, whatever things have an order, have number and distinction; but the eternal and temporal procession have an order, since the eternal [is] before the temporal: therefore they have a distinction; therefore they make a number: therefore the temporal and eternal procession are two.

**On the contrary:**

1. With the procession numbered, the proceeder is numbered, since one and the same does not proceed twice; therefore if there are two processions, there are two proceeders: therefore there are two Holy Spirits; but this is false, since one is the Holy Spirit who proceeds: therefore [the first is also false].

2. Likewise, if temporal and eternal procession differ, either it is from this — that they are diverse emanations — or because [there is] a diverse mode of emanating. Not because [they are] diverse emanations, since then there would be diverse emanators; nor because [there is] a diverse mode, since the Father and the Son always spirate in one mode: therefore the Holy Spirit always proceeds in one mode: therefore etc.

3. Likewise, a painted man and a real man are not two men; for things are not numbered except [as] univocals, and what is said of two according to one nature; but the temporal and the eternal share less than a painted man and a real man: therefore the temporal and eternal procession should not be called twofold.

4. Likewise, the temporal procession adds nothing over the eternal except a relation or an effect in the creature; but a relation or effect, added to a cause, does not number it: whence "the shining sun" and "the illustrating or illuminating sun" are not two, similarly "God who is" and "God who creates": therefore neither will the eternal and temporal procession be twofold.

> **Conclusion.** *According to the analogous mode of speaking it is not unfitting that the eternal and temporal procession of the Holy Spirit be called a twofold procession.*

**I respond:** It must be said that, for the understanding of what has been stated, it must be noted that procession is said to be doubled either by reason of the proceeders — for instance, when two sons proceed; or by reason of the mode of proceeding, as love and word proceed in two ways; or by reason of the mode of being-said, so that procession be called twofold, that is, said in two ways.

But it must be observed that the mode of being-said is threefold, namely equivocal, univocal, and analogous. When the mode of being-said is equivocal, there [is] a doubling with respect to being-said and not with respect to being. Whence "a painted man" and "a real man" is called *man* in two ways, but is not a twofold man or two men. When the mode of being-said is univocal, there is a doubling with respect to being and not

with respect to being-said. Whence "real man" is numbered in Socrates and in Plato, since they are two men, but is not said in multiple ways. Where the mode of being-said is analogous, since it holds part of the nature of the univocal, part of the nature of the equivocal, there is a numbering both in being and in being-said.

According to this mode therefore it must be said that procession, insofar as it has been said of the temporal and eternal procession, is not said univocally nor equivocally, but analogously, since the one mode is enclosed in the other. For to proceed from this into this as into an object is eternal, but to proceed from this into this as into a habitation is temporal. Therefore since the analogous is said in this way and in that, there is therefore a being-said-in-two-ways here, and one procession is said in two ways, and so consequently a twofold being [as well], so that it is not unfitting that the procession of the Holy Spirit be called twofold.

**Replies to the arguments:**

*To 1.* To that which is objected on the contrary, that, with the procession multiplied, the proceeder is multiplied; it must be said that this is true, if it is taken about multiplication according to one mode of being-said. Whence if the procession were twofold, insofar as procession is called an "exit from something," there would indeed be two proceeders; now however [it is] not so: but it is twofold, since in one way it is from someone into someone as into an object, in another way from someone into someone as into a habitation.

*To 2 and 3.* To that which is objected secondly: either there is a twofold procession because [there is] a twofold emanation or a twofold mode; it must be said that he does not divide sufficiently; for he ought to add a third member, namely, or because [there is] a twofold mode of being-said, [yet] not equivocal. And through this what follows about the painted man and the real [man] is clear, since there [is] not analogy, but pure equivocation.

*To 4.* To that which is objected lastly, that an added relation does not number etc.; it must be said that a relation added *to a subject* does not number the subject; whence the Holy Spirit is not called twofold because He is spirated and breathed-in. But when a relation is added to the signification of a term, then it is necessary that the [term] be said in one way and in another; and if it be a relation that is not distracting — such that it does not produce an altogether diverse signification — but ordered to it [the original signification], it makes an analogy in the term and a number according to being-said and also a number according to being. Whence if this name *illumination* signified the absolute act of shining and the act of shining as compared, the sun would be called to illuminate in two ways, and the illumination of the sun would be twofold; but yet more properly there would be a doubling there in being-said than in being. Whence the Master would speak more properly, if he said: "the procession of the Holy Spirit is said in two ways," than when he says that it is twofold, since "doubling" does not properly fall there.